Regulated Growth · Issue 1 · 25 September 2026
This is the first issue of Regulated Growth. Every two weeks you get one change, one teardown and one number, and it takes about five minutes to read.
By Elijah Oling Wanga · Sources checked 25 September 2026 · Not legal advice
1 · The change
Google’s UK financial services verification page has a new line under its first step, linking your FCA entity to your Google Ads account:
“Beginning from 26 September, before applying for verification, a contact with the same email domain as the FCA registered firm must be included in your Google Ads account.”
The page gives no year, so we quote it as written. Two practical consequences:
Check this week: open Access and security in the Ads account and look for at least one address on the firm’s domain.
Source: Google Ads Help, Financial services verification, United Kingdom, read 25 September 2026. Background: Google Ads financial services verification and the dated policy tracker.
2 · The teardown
This time the teardown is a pattern rather than one page. The hero says “Rates from 4.9%” in large type, and the representative example sits three scrolls down in grey small print, or on a separate rates page.
Why it gets flagged in the UK. Under CONC 3.5.3R, a financial promotion that indicates a rate of interest or an amount relating to the cost of credit must include a representative example. CONC 3.5.5R lists what goes in it (the rate and whether it is fixed or variable, other charges, the total amount of credit, the representative APR, the duration, the total amount payable, each repayment and, for deferred payment on goods or services, the cash price and any advance payment). It must be labelled “representative example”, with every item given equal prominence and no less prominence than any other cost-of-credit information on the page. A headline rate with the example out of sight fails that last test.
The US version. Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.24(d), works on trigger terms. If an ad for closed-end credit states a down payment, the number of payments, the amount of a payment or the finance charge, it must also state the repayment terms and the “annual percentage rate”, using that term.
The fix. Put the representative example directly under the headline rate, at the same size, and carry it onto the first screen of every landing page your ads send traffic to. The compliance checklist has the equivalent rows for Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana.
Sources: FCA Handbook, CONC 3.5 (3.5.3R and 3.5.5R); CFPB, 12 CFR 1026.24 Advertising. Both read 25 September 2026.
3 · The number
CAC payback is the number of months of gross profit a new customer takes to earn back what it cost to win them. Here it is for one illustrative company. These figures are made up for the example and are not a client’s.
| Method | Calculation | Payback |
|---|---|---|
| Margin-adjusted, prior-quarter spend | $600,000 ÷ ($800,000 × 0.75) × 12 | 12 months |
| No gross-margin adjustment | $600,000 ÷ $800,000 × 12 | 9 months |
| Current-quarter spend, no lag | $450,000 ÷ ($800,000 × 0.75) × 12 | 9 months |
Inputs: $600,000 of sales and marketing spend in the prior quarter ($450,000 in the current one), $800,000 of new-customer ARR, and a 75% gross margin.
The most recent named benchmark, the 2026 Aleph × Benchmarkit report, puts the median at 16 months across 198 B2B SaaS companies (full-year 2025 data), using the first method. If your 9 came from the second or third, you are not three months ahead of anyone. Check the method before you compare.
More detail, including the five ways payback benchmarks get quoted wrong: CAC payback period benchmarks for B2B SaaS and fintech. If you run paid ads in a regulated category, the Ad Account Risk Scorecard gives you a score out of 100 in about three minutes, on screen, with no email needed.
That’s issue 1. Reply to the email version and tell me what you’re working on. It reaches me directly.
Elijah
P.S. If you want the gaps found at the cause rather than listed, the Acquisition Audit takes two weeks and costs US$2,500, fixed.
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